"Cook, Glen - Dread Empire 04 - Octobers Baby" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

Her gaze went to the graveyard. Old Tor Jack lay in the corner, beside Randy Will who had gotten his skull crushed pulling Ragnar from between a stallion and a mare in heat. What would they think if Bragi threw it up now?

Jorgen Miklassen, killed by a wild boar. Gudrun Ormsdatter, died in childbirth. Red Lars, brought down by wolves. Jan and Mihr Krushka. Rafnir Shagboots, Walleyed Marjo, Tandy the Gimp.

Blood and tears, blood and tears. Nothing would bring them back. Why so morbidly thoughtful? Break yourself out, woman. Time goes on, work has to be done. What man hath wrought, woman must maintain.

Maxims did nothing to cheer her. She spent the day working hard, seeking an exhaustion that would extinguish her apprehensions.

In the evening, as twilight's pastels were fading into indigo, a huge owl came out of the east, flew thrice round the house widdershins, dipping and dancing with owls from beneath the greathouse eaves. It soon fled toward Mocker's.

"Another omen." She sighed.

iv) Mocker and Nepanthe of Ravenkrak

Mocker's holding lay hip by thigh with Ragnarson's. Both were held under Itaskian Crown Charter. On his own territory each had the power and responsibility of a baronЧwithout the privileges. Though neighbors, both found distance between homes a convenience. They had been friends since the tail-end years of the El Murid wars, but each found the other's extended company insufferable. The disparity in their values kept them constantly on the simmering edge. A day's visit, a night's drinking and remembering when, that was their limit. Neither was known for patience, nor for an open mind.

Ragnarson covered the distance before dinner, pretending that once again he was racing El Murid from Hellin Daimiel to Libiannin.

Mocker wasn't surprised to see him. Little astonished that fat old reprobate.

Ragnarson reined in beside a short, swarthy fellow on his knees in mud. Laugh lines permanently marked his moon-round brown face. "Hai!" he cried. "Great man-bears! Help!" Tenants came running, grabbing weapons. The fat man rose and whirled madly, dark eyes dancing.

A boy the age of Bragi's Ragnar ran from a nearby smokehouse, toy bow ready. "Oh. It's only Uncle Bear."

"Only?" Bragi growled as he dismounted. "Only? Maybe, Ethrian, but mean enough to box the ears of a cub." He seized the boy, threw him squealing into the air.

Wiping her hands on her apron, a woman came from the nearby house. Nepanthe always seemed to be wiping her hands. Mocker left a mountain of woman's work wherever he passed. "Bragi. Just in time for dinner. You came alone? I haven't seen Elana since..." Her smile faded. Since the bandit passage last fall, when Mocker's dependents had holed up in Ragnarson's stronger greathouse.

"Pretty as ever, I see," said Ragnarson. He handed his reins to Ethrian, who scowled, knowing he was being gotten rid of. Nepanthe blushed. She was indeed attractive, but hardly pretty as ever. The forest years had devoured her aristocratic delicacy. Still, she looked younger than thirty-four. "No, couldn't bring the family."

"Business?" She did most of Mocker's talking. Mocker had never mastered the Itaskian tongue. His vanity was such that he avoided speaking whenever he could. Ragnarson was not sure that inability was genuine. It varied according to some formula known only to Mocker himself.

"No. Just riding. Spring fever." Shifting to Necrem-nen, an eastern language in which Mocker was more at home, he continued, "Strange thing happened this morning. Old man appeared out of nowhere, mumbled some nonsense about girls who act like women. Wouldn't answer a question straight out, only in riddles. Weirdest thing is, I couldn't find a trace of him on the road. You'd think there'd be fresh droppings, coming or going."

Nepanthe frowned. She didn't understand the language. "Are you going to eat?" Pettishly, she brushed long raven hair out of her eyes. A warm breeze had begun blowing from the south.

"Of course. That's why I came." He tried charming her with a smile.

"Same man," Mocker replied, proving he could mangle even a language learned in childhood, "beriddled self. Portly pursuer of pre-dawn pissery, self, rising early to dispose of excess beer drunk night before, found same on doorstep before sunrise."

"Impossible. It was barely sunup when he turned up at my place..."

"For him, is possible. Self, having encountered same before, know. Can do anything."

"The Old Man of the Mountain?"

"No."

"Varthlokkur?"